The present invention relates generally to a row crop header attachment for a forage harvester and, more particularly, is directed to an improved multi-row crop header which promotes even feeding of crop material from adjacent stalkways to the transverse auger.
A typical forage harvester operating in row crops, such as corn or the like, includes a mobile base unit and a row crop header attached to the base unit for gathering crop from the field and feeding it rearwardly to the base unit. The base unit includes a forward generally rectangular inlet opening, a feed assembly spanning the width of the inlet opening and a cutter mechanism for cutting or chopping the stalks into small pieces. The row crop header attachment has a rear, generally centrally located discharge outlet in communication with the inlet opening when the header is mounted on the front of the base unit. As is well known, the crop is gathered by the header and delivered rearwardly through the central discharge outlet to the inlet opening and then into the feed roll assembly that feeds the crop to the cutterhead.
During recent years, the size of forage harvesters has become increasingly larger; however, even though the width of headers has been increased to accommodate larger machines the width of the cutterheads and thus the width of the feed roll assemblies and the associated inlet opening have remained relatively constant. To maintain maximum efficiency with these larger capacity machines there exists a direct relationship between the width of the cutterhead, the horsepower of the machine and the thickness and evenness of the mat of material being fed to the cutterhead. It is well recognized that the best results are achieved when the crop, such as corn, is fed to the feed roll assembly butt end first and in an even non-bunched manner. This enhances the length of cut quality and improves the overall efficiency of the forage harvester.
The butt end orientation of crop material being fed to the cutterhead from multi-row crop attachments has been provided for in various multi-row crop header attachments in the prior art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,083,167, Lindblom et al, issued Apr. 11, 1978, and assigned to a common assignee, discloses an attachment in which a consolidating auger laterally conveys crop material in a butt end orientation to a narrow central discharge outlet and obviates askew feeding of the stalks to the cutterhead. In multi-row header attachments of this nature, it is important that the stalks being fed into the auger from the outside row units move transversely to the discharge outlet and merge smoothly with those stalks being fed into the auger from inwardly disposed row units. In heavy crop conditions, the stalks tend to bunch up when they merge resulting in uneven feeding to the cutterhead which in turn results in poor length of cut quality by the harvester base unit. This prevents optimization of machine performance.